Consolidate and Focus

I'm going crazy *rocks silently in chair*. The accumulation of products within the last year of blogging has become overwhelming. 

Though I have been giving away products to charity/friends, and Jen has been helping me edit, I'm all over the place and something had to change. I couldn't deal with this chaos.

My collection covered my desktop. It was stashed away in drawers. It was consuming my living space. Mostly, it was unfocused and often unused because A) I didn't remember what I had or B) something wasn't in a format or grouped with things I could use it with. There were palettes I've hardly touched and products I've barely used. It dawned on me how pathetic and excessive this was.

I set out on a mission. A mission, where I found myself (and that foundation I loved but forgot about), where I fell in love again (with the Burberry shadows which I bought but was too afraid to use because they are expensive and pretty *so lame*) and where I finally got frickin' ORGANIZED.

MISSION: CONSOLIDATE AND FOCUS

Battle #1: Single Eyeshadows

I use to have these grouped roughly by brand into Z palettes. Blushes were set off in their own palette and barely touched. THAT'S DUMB. DON'T DO THAT. I realized how dumb that was, when I started looking for dark brown crease colors from MAC to put into my MAC palette even though I was swimming in dark brown crease colors from other brands. 

Consolidate: Palettes were reorganized into usable color collections WITH blushes. Each Z palette now stands alone and all have a highlight, a transition/blending shade, and a dark brown neutral outer corner shadow. I don't have to pull multiple palettes to get a look.

Focus: I'm only setting ONE at my desk. All the rest go into a metal box and live on my bookshelf. I'm going to switch up the palette maybe once a month so I can focus on using up shadows in batches.

Battle #2: Lips and Cheeks

Consolidate: I've always kept my lip and cheek items in this Sterilite three drawer set and nothing has changed except I've stood my blushes up, which allows more items into that drawer and I've cleared out a lot of lip products, thanks to to Jen.

Focus: I'm going to pull out one or two things each week to really focus on them. They will sit in my little "capsule collection tray" for the week.

Battle #3: Foundations and Stick Things

I kept all my foundations on my desk and all my liners in a jar on my desk. It was so cluttered!!

Consolidate: I have set all my foundations into a box to live my bookshelf and have pulled out one or two to use up. Same goes for all my liners, mascaras, and other pencil shades things. This includes brushes too. How did I end up with so many??

Focus: My little "capsule tray". This box lid of products is all I'm allowing on my desk. I have the foundations I'm working through, a highlight, powder and bronzer, a glass jar each of eye brushes and face brushes and a few singles/cream shadow items I'm hoping to focus on. 

Result:

This "capsule tray" has been AMAZING so far. I don't need to dig through any drawers in the morning since I've set this out. I've also used Burberry's Pale Barley more times this week than I have in MONTHS *small victory...pat on the back* and my desk is a lot less cluttered.

My re-org has crystalized a couple of things:

- It is going to take me flipping forever to use everything up. I'm hoping to sell off/give away even more stuff. Help me out.

- I need a LOT LESS than I want.

- I should use my expensive shit up and stop worrying about ANYTHING running out because that's not going to be an issue for YEARS.

If you blog, or even if you don't, how do you deal with your collection? Do you ever get overwhelmed or feel how excessive it is?

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